Without traffic our websites will starve. Conversions are important too but conversion is the end of our customers journey to find us. The last part of a story that starts with how they heard of you, how they learned more about you, how they considered you and how they finally chose you.

Everyone has paid for traffic and its a valuable part of marketing your website but what nobody talks about is that it converts at about a tenth of what organic traffic conversions measure in at. Organic traffic is better because of one primary reason. Google is considered trustworthy. If your customer found you through Google you have been vouched for already. That is a big step. Going directly from undiscovered to being discovered with a trustworthy status from the very beginning.

Regardless of your strategy, paid for or organic, you will need to learn and study your traffic during the whole process. From the very start you need to be using analytics tools. Google Analytics, and Google Search Console are the keys to studying your traffic.

Paying for advertisements

Paying for ads is a standard practice for a reason. It’s a normal part of doing business but regardless of where you get your ads from without a functional sales funnel most of that traffic is being wasted. If you are paying for traffic but losing that traffic then you are throwing away your money. Your landing page and your funnels should be converting strangers to leads, and leads into sales, or you are just wasting your time and energy.

SEO

As stated before Google is our friend. As a trusted adviser its hard to match. When google vouches for us it means that others will listen. If you aren’t and SEO wizard buy a book, watch tutorials or hire a guru.

Social Media

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook are some of the best traffic you can get. Remember not to be too focused on promotions. Try a 3 to 1 mixture of posts. 1 advertisement and 2-3 interesting, valuable or fun posts will keep people paying attention.

YouTube

Video content can be made and then pushed through your social profiles. This adds to the value of your other social sites as well as fulfilling a secondary function. YouTube is actually the second largest search engine in the world.

Influencers

Find influencers who through any number of social networks and platforms can help you get your name and your message out into the world. It’s worth spending a little money in this arena if necessary.

Reddit

A highly popular and fairly addicting platform that reaches a huge community. Remember to spend more time commenting and posting rather than spamming here. A little goes a long way. Build a reputation and recommend your products or services sparingly.

Mobile Friendly

People are turning from desktops and laptops toward mobile phones and devices. If you are not already optimized for mobile you need to be. You are probably driving away a lot of customers. On that same note be sure that your site is loading fast enough on mobile devices or you may have customers leaving before they ever get a chance to see what you have to offer.

Write a blog

Talk about anything and everything. It helps to have some relevant topic in mind to your offers, products or services but truly its about making content and offering something other than those products. Blogging is a great way to add value to your site that it otherwise wouldn’t have, as well as a way to put a bit of character onto your brand.